Category Archives: Connecticut

Every once in a while, another little tidbit trickles in about the Friends Album. Over the weekend, I received a notice that a photo I had requested on FindaGrave had been taken by a volunteer.

I had requested a photo of Calvert Young’s grave when I was researching the folks in the album. It is now available here. His sister, Mary C., is listed on the stone as well. I wonder if it’s the same stone as that of their parents: Cornelia Morris and Henry Young.

I just received a call from one of the descendants of the Young family from the Friends Album. This is the gentleman to whom I mailed a letter with a photo of Cornelia Morris (his 4G-grandmother) and a copy of the family tree that I put together.

He said he just returned from out of the country and my letter was waiting for him amidst a huge stack of mail. He called me as soon as he opened it. He confirmed that I had the right family.*

He said both of his parents are still alive and in their mid-80s. He confirmed the family has strong connections to Danbury, Conn., and Yonkers, N.Y. (where this gentleman was born).

They are thrilled to have the album coming their way — I hope to send it to them this weekend. I can’t even describe how elated I am to be reuniting these photos with the family!

* Updated 7/1/2011: I spoke with Stanley Young III again last night and he said he was mistaken and he actually hadn’t seen the photo of Cornelia Morris before. Nevertheless, he now has the Friends Album and couldn’t wait to show it to his parents over the 4th of July weekend.

I had looked up Ernest on FindaGrave previously, when I was investigating him. No pictures of his tombstone were available, so I requested one. On Sunday, a kind volunteer ventured out to take a photo for me at Land’s End Cemetery (on Hawleyville Road!) in Newtown, Fairfield County, Connecticut.

One interesting date discrepancy — this tombstone says that he died on February 20. His obituary, however, ran on February 19 and indicated that he had died the day before (February 18).

As you can see, the same marker also contains information for Cornelia. She lived until 1975, so perhaps this stone wasn’t carved until that time. Whoever ordered the stone probably wasn’t around in 1905 when Ernest died. I’m guessing they had the wrong information regarding the date of his death.

In this stage of research for the Friends Album, I find myself hampered by my physical location. For the most part, I’m restricted to using online records. I’ve almost come to the point where I’ll need to try and locate a co-conspirator in at least Connecticut to help me finish this project.

In the meantime, I decided to try and trace as many of the Young descendants as I could over the past week, and started by investigating the descendants of Cornelia Morris and Henry B. Young. The list below gets confusing, but bear with me. I created this post mostly to get my notes down as I researched. I know folks are interested in my progress, so here we go:

I found Cornelia and Henry along with their children, including a son Calvert, in the 1860 census. Calvert is about the age of 9, but there’s no trace of him in later years. Perhaps he died young.

I couldn’t find anything beyond census records up to 1880 for their daughter, Martha.

Mary L. Morrill also married into the Young family. She and her husband, Stanley, Cornelia’s and Henry’s other son, had several children. Among them was Calvert H. Young. I found him in the 1920 census in Yonkers, N. Y., which incidentally was the setting for several of the photos from the Friends Album (see Photos 3 & 4, Photo 14, Photos 30 & 31).

Calvert and his wife, Clara, had a son, Harold, who was 4 years old at the time of the 1920 census. But Harold wasn’t Calvert’s only child. I also found him in the 1910 census with two nearly grown children — daughter Nathley (age 21; apparently her name actually was Nellie/Natalie, as evidenced by other records I found) and son Stanley (age 17). I’m finding that there were a ton of Harold Youngs, many originating in New York, and so it’s difficult to find military, death or other records that are definitely his.

I moved on to Stanley and this is where reviewing another Ancestry member’s work paid off. I found a 1930 census record for Stanley’s family, including his three children. One of them was still another Stanley A. Young.

I’m getting close! More on Stanley A. Young, Jr., in an upcoming post. I think he’s going to be the key.

I also looked at another sibling of Calvert’s — George E. Young. I think I found him in the 1910 census in Danbury. He and his wife Katherine/Catherine had several children, including a son named Egbert.

I figured the name Egbert would be easy to find. I found him in Danbury city directories for 1921 and 1922, but he’s not to be found in 1924. I haven’t found an SSDI record for him. Perhaps he died in the 1920s?

I moved on to Egbert’s brother Richard, who was born in 1903 and I think I found him with wife Hazel and son Richard in the 1930 census. I think I found evidence of his death in 1999 on RootsWeb:

YOUNG, Richard S; 71; Danbury CT;
News-Times; 1999-1-21; sherik

The obit isn’t available online so I’ll either need to travel to the Library of Congress to view the record or find someone in Danbury who can look it up for me.

Moving on to George Young, Richard’s and Egbert’s younger brother. I found a casualty report on him from WWII, but not much else.

Going back to the sisters in this family, Antoinette M. Young married Norris Ballard according to another Ancestry member’s family tree. There’s no source for the marriage, but there are death records to use, if needed. The tree lists the names of their children, but I hesitate to follow this line any further without more evidence.

Going all the way back to Stanley and Mary Young’s children, William H. Young is the next subject to be investigated. Apparently, he died in 1910 (according to FindaGrave). There is no evidence that he ever married — he was still living with parents in his 30s in the 1900 census.

Charles Young is the last of the male siblings in this generation. I haven’t found much on him past 1900.

Edith M. Young married Emerson Ballard (related to the other Ballard above?) and they had a daughter, Alpha Margaret. Another Ancestry member found her death index record and her married name was Claus. She died in 1997. No record that she had children.

A while back, I found a 1920 census listing for Friends Album subject Frederick A. Young and fam and noticed that there was a family by the name of Wilson in the household next door. Is this a coincidence, given that there’s an Ellis Wilson in the Friends Album? Certainly ‘Wilson’ is a very common surname, but I felt I needed to dig deeper to see if I could find a connection to these neighbor Wilsons.

Ellis’ parents were Clarence T. Wilson and his wife, Susan. I haven’t really fleshed out their extended family or previous generations at this point because I was more interested in looking for more recent generations.

The Wilsons living next to the Youngs in 1920 are George R. (age 58), his wife Libby A. (age 60) and George’s mother, Elizabeth A (age 74). George is listed as a farmer.

The Wilsons are living next door to the Youngs in 1910 as well. Daughter Emma M. (age 24) is in the household at that time, as is son George E (age 15).

In 1900, the clan is even bigger. Another daughter, Libbie Belle, is with the family, along with mother-in-law Emily Hirst. Not only that, but there is another Wilson household right next door to them (on the other side from the Youngs): Albert and Annie, along with their son, Charles.

Most of these neighbor Wilsons have roots in New York, Connecticut or England. After looking a bit more into Clarence’s family history, however, he and his siblings were born in Massachusetts. Clarence’s parents hailed from Connecticut though. I’m trying to flesh out his father’s life a bit, but for now, there’s no clear connection between Ellis and his family and the Wilsons who were neighbors to the Youngs.

I suppose that there doesn’t really have to be such a connection between Ellis Wilson and the Youngs pictured in the album. The album is titled “Our Friends” and so it could be a hodge-podge of a acquaintances who are not related to each other in any way.

In my research into descendants of the subjects in the Friends Album, I found the following obit:

“Ernest Hawley of Hawleyville, a grocer, 26 years old, died yesterday at his home in that village. He was struck in the eye by a bit of steel a short time ago and spinal meningitis developed. He leaves a widow.”

Not just a widow. Apparently, a pregnant widow — Cornelia. Their son Ernest G. Hawley was born in 1906. He and his mother are listed as living with her parents in the 1910 and 1920 censuses.

Cornelias’s parents were Frederick A. Young and his wife, Urania. I believe Frederick A. Young to be a subject of the Friends Album, pictured here.

I found memorials at FindaGrave for Ernest Hawley and Cornelia. So far, I’m having a bit more trouble picking up the trail for Ernest G. Hawley. I haven’t been able to find any military records for him, which I thought would be a sure thing. I did find a Social Security Death Index record for someone who may be him, but I need to strengthen the connection before I put too much stock in that record.

The above is a photo of the photo because I couldn’t remove it from the album to scan it. I was able to remove Friend No. 65’s photo, a carte de visite:

Friend No. 65

One note about the photo above: the fabric is very similar to that in Friend No. 63’s photo. Yet another sibling? Is this enough to say that the other photo was taken in Danbury too? Not really, but intriguing nonetheless.

The reverse of the above photo shows quite a different version of the imprint for the J. H. Folsom studio:

Reverse of Friend No. 65's photo

The address of 161 Main Street in Danbury is one we haven’t encountered before for any of the Danbury photographers. In 2009, it was Democratic headquarters:

161 Main Street in Danbury, Conn., on Google Street View

A search on Ancestry revealed the studio at this address in 1886 and 1887 (but known as Mrs. J. H. Folsom’s).